


Let Me Help You

by HK44



Series: Blind!Nico AU [4]
Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, The Kane Chronicles - Rick Riordan
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ficlet, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-07
Updated: 2020-06-07
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:00:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24581962
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HK44/pseuds/HK44
Summary: “I meant about staying at a place.” Walt shifted, his coat brushing against Nico’s side. “No offense, but I think you could use a shower.”“So could you,” Nico grumbled back, but he gave a sharp nod.
Series: Blind!Nico AU [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/482509
Comments: 6
Kudos: 62





	Let Me Help You

**Author's Note:**

> When [Waltstoned's (Tumblr)](https://waltstoned.tumblr.com/)/[Sunbee's (AO3)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunbee/pseuds/sunbee) Stoner!Walt AU meets my Blind!Nico AU.
> 
> We both agree that Walt would probably smoke a heck ton in order to manage his pain without magic and then joked that he'd probably meet Nico at McDonald's while on a munchie run. This is after the Titan's Curse and before BOTL.

Nico was standing in line for a burger. He'd gotten a couple ghosts to fish receipts out of the trash and was set to redeem them. Sure, he could ask his father for money but going down to the Underworld again was a terrifying feat.

Not because the place was scary - it was actually quite calming to him - but because everytime he went there, he spent hours searching for Bianca until his feet had run ragged and Hypnos had to force him to sleep just to make him stop. He scampered the moment he woke up a couple hours later. And now he was standing in line, staring at a giant blur ahead of him, clutching dirty receipts. He'd heard that you could "redeem" receipts for free food. It didn't seem like a sound business practice but who was he to argue with free food?

He stumbled to the front when the cashier called him up and the negative space in front of him opened as the blob ahead of him moved to the side. Throwing down his receipts, he mumbled, "Can I have a burger please? No mayonnaise."

The cashier was quiet. Then, "And how would you like to pay?"

He pointed to the receipts. "I'm redeeming these."

Their voice was patient and quiet as they spoke. "So you have to fill out the survey on the app and then you can get the code. And the code is only redeemable if you order fries or a drink with the burger." Nerves lit up in their voice. They dropped to a whisper. "Do you have a phone? I can fill out the survey for you now."

He shook his head, grabbing his receipts to show into his pockets. "Thank you." As he turned, he smacked head first into someone else. Growling up his breath, he took a step back. "Hey!"

"I got it."

The boy's soul was young but aged so finely, for a moment Nico was baffled. His voice was raspy. As he moved forward, his soul turned white with pain before sitting back into a murky gray. Nico stared at him. He smelled acrid.

"Do you want a drink?" It took him a moment to realize the boy was talking to him and he shook his head quickly. "I'll take two root beers, two Big Macs, no mayo, and, uhhhh…" 

His soul spread out then slipped back together. It was barely holding in one form.

Nico had seen it before. Sleeping on the streets, he'd stumbled into enough corners to know where the drug addicts hung out. The newbies were easy to spot. Their souls relaxed with the first hit. The "I'm used to this" ones tended to be looser, like they were mushy. The ones close to death, so addicted they were bound to die without it, were always breaking apart, their souls scattering and trying to put themselves back together but so wrong, always so wrong. They were too out of it, they barely knew how to put themselves together again and their soul was horribly the same.

This boy was bordering the line between the last two stages.

Nico didn't like that.

He was too young.

"Sir?"

"Oh. Right. Um." The boy exhaled sharply. "A McWrap and just. Four things of fries? Yeah."

Change clattered on the table as the cashier read out the total then the boy extended his arm to Nico. He slipped his hand underneath it. Just a single touch, a single poke and he wanted to vomit.

How could anyone live like that? There was so much  _ pain _ .

They settled off to the corner while he waited for his number to be called out.

"I'm Walt."

"Nico."

Walt's soul turned pink with kindness, a deep urge to help. He'd seen it in Makaria the last time he visited. Her urgency to love him, to help care for him had him scampering away from her like a feral cat escaping the outreached hands of a stranger. It hit too close to home.

But Walt was dark skinned and a boy and Bianca had been white and a girl so the similarity didn't hurt as much as it could have. Unlike Makaria, he wasn't Nico's sister. He still turned his face away, no longer wanting to peek.

"Do you need a place to stay?"

Nico snorted. "Do  _ you?" _ Walt went silent. The tension between them was questioning. "Just because I'm blind doesn't mean I can't smell."  _ You're going to die soon, _ he thought. He wished he could voice it.  _ You're dying, I can see it. _

"Chronic pain," Walt said. He laughed, short, uncomfortable. "Normally I make cookies." His voice cut out. "Do you?"

"I don't need cookies," Nico muttered. He wouldn't mind a cookie. But the last cookie he'd had was from Pasithea and that had… really numbed him out. It was to stop his crying, so he could sleep and rest, and he knew that but it was still unsettling to experience.

He glanced up at Walt, taking in his soul once more.

He'd probably be used to it. And it wouldn't bury so deep into his body, his soul would continue to crack.

Instincts and Lorrie's teachings told him to not go home with a strange person he'd just met. Told him to return to the Underworld where it was safe for him, even if he'd scatter the endless fields searching until his feet bled, even if he'd be dragged away by gods he barely knew and magically drugged asleep, even if his father regarded him with such pain that he knew without ever seeing her, without even remembering her, that he was starting to look too much like his mother.

But when push came to shove, Nico had teeth and enough rage pummeling through him that if he tried enough, he could tear Walt’s throat out with a bite and then his soul into pieces just to seal the deal. He was shaking so close, Nico knew it wouldn’t be hard.

“I meant about staying at a place.” Walt shifted, his coat brushing against Nico’s side. “No offense, but I think you could use a shower.”

He could. He was wary about where the water in the Underworld came from. Everyone assured him it was safe but he still had a strange sensation of being held under there, taking a dip and waking up different. He didn’t trust it.

Not yet.

“So could you,” Nico grumbled back, but he gave a sharp nod.

“Great. Two showers and some food.” He cuffed Nico’s shoulder softly.

His number called a few minutes later and then they were stumbling back out into the frigid April air. Walt swore and then shifted off into an empty alleyway. Clutching the bag of food, Nico followed. He didn’t even need to peek inside to know he was in pain. His cry cut out as he dry heaved. Then he stood up.

The air radiated around them.

Nico took a wary step back. The magic… it wasn’t his. He knew that. But it felt familiar, like one of the sections in Persephone’s garden that felt out of place among the rest of others. She said they were wedding gifts. That when the others found out what his father was planning to build for her in her honor, so she’d always be there even when she was gone, they wanted to add to it, as a thank you for bringing light to a bleak man’s life.

The others.

His mythomagic cards weighed heavily in his pocket and the answer before him felt like a deep plunge into cold water.

_ Oh _ .

Well, that made sense.

He bit his lip and then took a couple steps forward. Shadows gathered around him and he felt himself wisp away into complete darkness. The Underworld resurfaced under his feet. The batch of medicine was always there, by his makeshift bed at the edge of the Styx, out of view from anyone entering.

He knew they had set up a room for him, from the moment he stepped out of the Lotus but he couldn’t take a step into it yet.

So he slept on the edge of the Styx, the rushing water reminding him of blue eyes and the smell of the ocean, the exit to the Underworld so close, it was easier for him to hustle out without wanting to slip back and keep looking for his sister. Someone who clearly didn’t want to be found.

He shook his mind from his thoughts, sniffing each bottle until he found Pasithea’s signature blend of cherries and vanilla. Then he shoved the bag of food between his shirt and his jacket. He took a deep breath.

This was going to weaken him but hopefully the drink would help Walt enough to carry him the rest of the way.

Shadows slid around him, the natural darkness of the Underworld exhaling it from the ground and walls. He relaxed into it, sliding back to where he left Walt, who was swearing rapidly as he was so clearly dumpster diving.

“Hey.”

Walt’s head snapped out of the dumpster, dark against the bright green. “You- Where the  _ fuck _ did you go?”

“Had to get you something.” He shoved the bottle out to him. “It’ll help more than those drugs.”

He didn’t need eyes to know Walt was staring at him. As he stepped out of the dumpster, he approached Nico slowly but didn’t take the bottle. “Who are you?”

“Son of a god.” Nico cocked his head. “You don’t have that feel, though. You’re something different, aren’t you?” Walt’s voice choked and then he was stomping around Nico, trying to flee. Nico reached out, smacking Walt’s thigh with his cane. “Please! Just take it! You’re dying and I don’t-”

His breath caught.

Walt froze.

“I don’t like it,” he whispered.

He could still remember Biance’s life fading away, a painful shot to the gut that he didn’t understand. He remembered Travis and Connor asking him a dozen times if he was okay as he fell to the ground, crying out. He could remember feeling life around him snap fast and sudden, so much, so many, so  _ painfully _ , the one night he’d been carried into the ER by some good samaritan and he had jumped out the window, darkness swallowing him up until he found himself in China, being cared for a sweet woman who didn’t speak a lick of English or Italian, an entire week and a half later.

His first travel through the shadows and it had been in fear.

Sometimes he wondered if his father sent those shadows to him, 

“Please.” He shoved the bottle back out, his hand shaking. “Just take it.” He shifted and pulled the bag out of his hidey-hole, his cane dangling from its loop around his wrist. It smacked him in the face on its way out. The scent had him near salivating. “And- and the food. You paid for it.”

He could just sneak into another house and raid their fridge just enough to stop the growling in his stomach.

Walt didn’t take anything. Instead he shifted closer and closer until Nico felt like he was being swallowed up into shadows again. “How did you know?”

“It’s obvious.” He took a breath. “Your soul is shattering against itself. The drugs might help your pain but that doesn’t stop it from being  _ obvious _ where it matters.” He prodded Walt’s chest in front of him. “Right there.”

Walt’s hand slipped over Nico’s but then vanished before Nico could hand the bottle over. “Take a sip first.”

Nico uncorked the lid and took a drink. He opened his mouth, tilting his head back to show off the liquid in his mouth then swallowed, showing off the inside of his mouth once more. He pushed the bottle forward until it hit Walt’s chest. “Happy?”

Walt didn’t answer or hesitate as he drank.

The strange relaxation settled down into Nico’s stomach. He didn’t feel rejuvenated but the weakness that had been settling into his legs since the second jump waned away.

“Pasithea makes it so I stop crying every time I feel someone die,” he admitted quietly. “She’s the goddess of relaxation. Among other things.”

“I don’t know that one.” Walt reached out and guided Nico’s hand to the crook of his elbow. “You said you were the son of a god? What god? I didn’t think they had kids with mortals.”

“Yours might not. Mine definitely does.” Nico snorted. “My father, Hades, says all of them are sluts. Then Than pointed out that he’s had kids too and he said he wasn’t excluding him and that if a man has more than three kids with different women, he’s a slut.”

Walt choked on a laugh. “Hades? That’s… That’s Greek, right?”

“Yeah.”

“We’re - well,  _ my _ gods, they’re Egyptian.”

Nico clicked his tongue as they began walking off. “That’s cool. I have some of their cards. The Greek pack was cheaper but Bi-” He faltered and cleared his throat. “I got some of the Egyptian cards separately.”

“Cards?”

“Mythomagic.” His cheeks burned. “It’s a- it’s a card game.”

“Will you teach me?” Walt patted Nico’s hand. “I have to thank you somehow. This stuff you gave me is actually working a lot better than any of my other methods.” He laughed, soft. “I actually feel… really clear.”

“Yeah, it negates other effects,” Nico said. “When she’s not feeling mean, she likes to use it on addicts.”

“What does she do when she is feeling mean?”

“Violent hallucinogens.”

Walt inhaled sharply then coughed rapidly. “Oh gods, it’s cold.” He pulled Nico to a stop. “Is that the other stuff?” Nico nodded. “Does she give that stuff to you?”

“If she did, I think my father would stop paying her and strangle her a little.”

Laughing, Walt wheezed. Nico grinned. He’d never had someone laugh at his little remarks that weren't the people who already lived Underworld. Even the couple of demigods, he’d stumbled into who tried to corral him into joining the side of that voice that spoke to him a couple times in his sleep didn’t laugh when he told them some pithy remark about how he’d have to ask his father first.

“That’s a good dad.” Walt’s voice was wistful. Nico held back his questions, but reached out to his soul and gave a soft stroke. Walt sighed beside him, not noticing, not recognizing the supernatural touch, but calming.

His soul was picking itself back together, still separated but slowly pulling together in the right spots. Nico glanced out into the street. Bright cars honked and flashed by.

He’d have to get him some more later. If he asked nice enough maybe Pasithea wouldn’t charge him for handing them over to another person and if she did, then he’d just use the ones she’d give him. It wasn’t like he used them anyway.

But Walt would.

And he needed it much more than Nico ever could.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


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